Still at sea day 3

Ok, now I really don't like all this bouncing around! It feels just like really bad turbulence, the kind when you feel like the plane is falling from the sky. Why is it that all I've heard is how wonderful Alaska is, but no one warns you about the seas. Maybe Alaska is so spectacular that you forget the trauma of getting there, kind of like giving birth! Today even with the patch I'm not feeling great, and by the clean ups around the ship I'd say I wasn't the only one!



We are trying a new approach today....eating less food. Seems like we eat constantly and then we are not hungry at all when a meal time comes again, yet we still manage to eat!

The girls are having fun exploring, and they are planning to go to the gym in a while. Later today they are going to see a Sherlock Holmes movie. Me, still feeling a bit sick, I'm going enjoy a nap with everyone doing their own thing. I hate to spend much in my room, but I am enjoying it! Plus, I'm on vacation and can do anything I want, including 24 hour room service! If only I were hungry!

Here the girls are enjoying another dinner.




Dad forgot his glasses, but mine look fantastic on him!



Ok, so I have the lead in ping pong, I also have the lead in basketball, and I gained a new title, faster climber than the elevator - up six flights and still beat Monte. Not only am I winner of going up, but down too. Woho, I'm on a run. Maybe I should hit the casino or play bingo.


Ok now it is 9:00 pm and finally some relief from the ups and downs! During our comedy the curtains didn't even sway.... Much better! We had another nice dinner and we all went to the show, an enjoyable evening. At 9:00 the sun is still quite high in the sky. We went outside, cold and windy, but sunny. We will get up by 6:00 and leave for our excursion right after breakfast. We are taking a boat ride to see a fjord. It is suppose to be Alaska's Yosemite.

I'm thinking that I don't love cruises anymore. Or at least rough water. I think I prefer either a warm climate or to just be on land. We are so hooked on Europe it is hard compare anything else. But, we have yet to see Alaska, I might, just yet, eat my words!


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At sea day 2

Oh my, oh my, am I glad I kept that patch on! All night the ship would raise up and down, and move side to side. I'm sure going up the coast is the worst part. All night long it felt like I was in an aircraft hitting tons of turbulence with that dropping feeling. I didn't sleep much. But I'm not at all sea sick, so that is great! I hope Paige and Courtney are fine too, haven't seen them yet today.

So it turns out that the girls were waiting for us for dinner, but we missed each other. They tried to get in to the dinning room but it was too late so they decided to wait until the next setting. But, they did meet more interesting people, which is a nice benefit.



Funny how we all seem so exhausted. All we seem to do is eat, eat and eat, and sleep and go to events. Today we heard a lecture about whales, dolphins and otters. It was very interesting. I thought Monte and Dad would find it interesting too, until I glanced at Dad and found his eyes closed then Monte doing the same. About 20 min later there was a pause of silence during the presentation and then a very loud snort. Everyone turned to see what it was, and it was my dear husband waking himself up. It was the funniest think ever! I think they did enjoy the lecture, or at least what they heard. I sure hope we are lucky enough to see some wildlife.

Monte and I played basketball, ping pong, and took a cold windy walk around the deck. It was fun!


Well, the seas have not calmed down and all day I've been on the edge of sea sickness. I can handle several hours, but I don't know about days!

We had a formal dinner tonight. The girls looked beautiful!



I'm looking forward to getting off the ship and seeing the beauty of Alaska. I think we have some nice things planned.


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Bon Voyage day 1

I've been told by a lot of people that if you cruise and get sea sick you should get the patch. Well, I do get sea sick, and my history of " the patch" from long ago is not a pleasant one.

On our honeymoon we went on our first cruise, to the Bahamas. I was concerned about getting sea sick so I did get the patch but I didn't want to use it unless I actually was sea sick. Right after the ship left port I found that I was already getting nauseated. So I read the directions and realized you have to apply it 4 hours before you leave. So, I put it on, took some dramamine and went to dinner. It was our first dinner at sea, our first dinner as a married couple, so of course we celebrated with a nice bottle of wine. Between the wine, Dramamine and the " patch", I crashed, big time! I felt so sick, I told Monte I'd have to hire a helicopter to get me off the ship. Luckily, when it all wore off I was much better and not even sea sick!



So, here we are about to board a cruise ship for Alaska. I've heard the seas are really rough heading north. So, I really don't want to get sick right off the bat, so I got an Rx for the patch. But this time I figured I'd skip the Dramamine but probably not the wine! I put the patch on the last night making a good plan so I'll be in the best shape possible to enjoy our vacation. I woke this morning, got out of bed and I was so dizzy I could hardly walk down the hallway! My mouth is so dry I'm drinking constantly. I hate this feeling. I'm thinking the patch makes you feel so bad it gives you land sickness so when you get on the sea you feel better. I'm trying to stick with it, but maybe I should have learned my lesson before.


We sailed under the magnificent golden gate bridge. What a site! The weather was a bit windy and cool, but not too bad. A beautiful start. The captain made an announcement that we were going to have strong north winds that will cause a lot of movement of the ship, and if anyone gets sea sick takes meds now. As we continued out into the open water you could feel the ship move more and more......so glad I have the patch! I would have been in bad shape without it. I hate the dry mouth and just having a weird feeling while taking it, but the alternative is much worse. I do look forward to calmer seas ahead.


We had a nice dinner tonight but Paige and Courtney were too late so they had to wait an hour and a half later for the next seating.
Sounds like the girls are having fun and they've had many interesting conversations with strangers, Iike the guy who does lighting for movies in Hollywood and another family from Scotland.

Monte was tired after dinner so he decided to rest while dad and I went to the show. We had no idea were the girls were, so we went ahead without them.

Dad and I saw the show, it was good, but I wasn't feeling really great or I would have enjoyed it more.







Off to bed, Monte is already sleeping. We need our rest for the big day tomorrow, you know, eating, sleeping, eating, whatever!

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Location:Sea princess heading north near oregon

Alsace, France Route du Vin

Alsace, France
When we left Burgundy this morning, it was hard to go. Just like every other place so far. But, we did wake up to rain, so that made it easier. It stopped not long after we were on the road so our driving was fine. It was about 4:15 min drive. Another long one, and our last of that length. Funny how it just doesn't seem that long. I guess because all the scenery is new, so it is exciting. We drove past what looked to be a van selling bread. I told Monte to stop but he had already gone past. He said we would pick up food down the road...but wait..I hope we learned from our past mistakes! He turned around and we caught the van just before it was leaving the village. We bought cheese, plain, and chocolate croissants...yep, in France!



We drove on, planning to eat them closer to lunch. Paige fell asleep and monte was driving, but I was available, so I started in on mine.





Not long after we decided to stop at a rest stop on the highway to use the bathroom and nibble our treats. On the highways in France there are very few exits. I mean very few! When you get on, you pick up what looks like a parking ticket then when you exit you give a person or machine your ticket and you pay.




So I think to cut down on how many toll areas there are, they don't let you off the highway easily. Therefore, there are a lot of rest stops, some with food etc. Our stop just had bathrooms. So, for the second time I thought I'd give it a whirl..you know, those French standing kind. I am getting better at it. Didn't even notice any splatter on my pants! How great is that since my pants haven't been washed yet and probably won't for another two weeks. It is a French experience.




So we enjoyed our croissants, but Paige was distracted by the cute French guy working nearby. I bet she could hardly taste the food!




Off we went to find our new B&B. It started to rain as we got closer and the rain kind of damped my spirit about the place we were going. It got very good reviews on-line, but in the rain, and having left behind a fabulous place I just wasn't sure if anything could be as nice. When we arrived I noticed know cute the town was. Then I noticed one place with scaffolds over the building....guess what, that was our place!




The couple who run it are very nice and run a fabulous restaurant below. I feel better about it now that the rain stopped so we could see the town, we had dinner at the restaurant, and it was very good.





















The area is amazing, so we look forward to getting out tomorrow.





We have been tired so we were glad we would go to bed early...oh, but this is France, we started at 7:30 and ended at 10:30. Here I am blogging at11:30. No wonder we have been tired!

Tomorrow should be a great day. We are hoping for good weather.

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Location:Route du Vin,Itterswiller,France

Posted by Whitefield's Travels at 4:00 PM
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Location:Route du Vin,Itterswiller,France

Coming Home

We woke up at 4:00 to get ready and out the door by 5:00. Our hotel called for a taxi and it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Smooth sailing to the train station and on to the airport.

It some ways even though things go smoothly it still seems to be a bit difficult, just making sure we are on the correct train, etc. We couldn't find many English speakers, or maybe people just didn't want to help. We realized we needed to validate our train tickets as the people were boarding. These trains stop and leave very quickly, so you have to be ready. We remembered the validation process from Italy, but we were not sure about Germany and we didn't see any validation machines. Luckily someone who spoke English did hear me asking and looking and pointed out the machine. I stuck them in as fast as I could hoping to get on the train that Monte and Paige had just boarded. I was happy I made it too! It is always hard when you're carrying luggage, and trying to figure everything out too.

We arrived with a comfortable amount of time so everything went fine. I was a bit concerned as we boarded our flight when I heard a father tell his little kids they were in row 16, and we are 17! But I shouldn't have let that bother me. Instead I should be concerned that we have about six kids within three rows of us between the ages of 1 1/2 and 6. This may be an interesting flight. The single dad is with 2 kids, one maybe 3 and one maybe 5 siting directly in front of us with only himself across the isle. Hope it all goes ok. The sneezing and coughing I hear concerns me less. The joys of flying!



We are 4 hours in and the kids have been great so far. The beauty of computers and movies! They have ear phones and movies on the ipad.

We are getting hungry..surprise, surprise! Glad we grabbed a bit of food before we left, but our flight left at 9:30 and it is 1:30, shouldn't there be lunch by now, and what about the Baileys I was expecting? This time no chocolate, no wine, and no Baileys. I hope they step it up soon or my last impressions of Air Berlin may change!

We are now at 3:15, finally got some hot food, wine and Baileys. Whoo! I feel better!

Had some beautiful views out of the airplane: icebergs, mountains, snow plains, most in Canada. We missed Iceland, which I bet was gorgeous.








Maybe I'm fooling myself, but it seems to me this flight wouldn't be too bad if we didn't have to get up so early. But, I think the jet leg is worse this direction. I guess well see. Ah oh...baby crawling up the isle!


Lucky for us the new iPad has a 10+ hour battery. The kids nearest to us used it all.

We arrived on time and took a shuttle to the hotel in SF. We did a park and fly hotel package, but decided to stay at the hotel the last night since our departure wasn't until the afternoon. We got to the hotel at 1:30, but considered driving home since we all felt pretty good. I encouraged Monte to stay, at least for a couple of hours to get some sleep before we drove home. We tried, but felt so wired we just decided to leave at about 2:30. We figured we'd run into traffic since we were in the Bay Area on a Friday. But, we forgot it was a holiday weekend until we were underway. Wow...a lot of traffic! It took us 4 hours to get home. We picked up dinner and were asleep by about 8:00. I think by that time we had been awake 25 hours! I don't even remember giving myself an injection (those great meds) and when I woke up at 11:30 I thought I had forgotten. I couldn't find my syringe and then found the package in the garbage, so I knew I had taken it. Weird to be that tired!

When we got home we found out from Megan our house-sitter that our cat had been eating a lot of food. She had also heard some different sounds in the house but the cat was in the room with her and the dog was at dog vacation camp, so it wasn't them. She couldn't find any problems until one night she opened the side door to find a raccoon staring at her. He had been coming in through the cat door! Good thing Megan was staying here or the raccoon could have been getting into more than just cat food!

It is good to be home...I think...?? We loved our trip and already started planning the next one. But, nothing beats home sweet home!

Until next time.......




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Location:45,000 Feet

Our Last Day

We left our B&B, here are the owners:



When we left he pulled out a hankie and pretended to cry and wipe tears and then said "shit, shit". I'm not sure if he really understood the translation of shit!

We drove to Koln (Cologne) today to return our car and see the famous cathedral. Our drive was wonderful along the Mosel River and then the Rhine. It was a beautiful sunny day, temperature in the low 70's. We decided to find our hotel and drop our bags before returning the car which was located near the cathedral. I don't know what it is but big cities with tons of cars, bikes, two lanes where one lane turns into parking unexpectedly, all of it kind of freaks us out. It really takes two people to drive, one to yell, "Watch out! And the other one to drive the car! It really is amazing we didn't kill someone on this month long trip...whoops, did I day that out loud? We are thankful Monte is a skilled driver.

So anyway, we found the hotel ok, but parking on the street was difficult. We finally found a place, paid for parking and went in to get our room. They told us they had a garage we could use so we figured it would make it easier to get our bags into the room. Someone had to use a key to let us into to the parking garage. Have you ever seen those lots on TV where your car goes into an elevator and then it is parked within a couple inches of the others...yep! That is what we did. Very interesting. We got our bags to the room and then had to get the attendant to help us get the car back out. A bit scary, but we did it.

We didn't mention in the blog that we had a rental car issue. When we picked up the car in Munich, it was late afternoon, we drove it from the dark garage, and then we were on our way. Sure we hadn't slept much in the last 24 hrs or so, but we drove fine and made it to our B&B ok. We parked in a lot for the B&B where there was only a couple other cars, and we were on the end. Anyway, the next morning Monte was up early, before breakfast, and went out to get coffee. When he returned he noticed a large scrape along the side of the car. I mean a large scrape, like12 inches from top to bottom in a white paint color, and probably 5 inches wide. We couldn't believe it! We never remembered hitting anything, no one had parked next to us, there was no chance it could have been something we did....or could it? We were so tired, could we have hit something and not known it? So, many thoughts were going through our head...do we call our insurance, call the rental car company, call the agent who set up the rental? We did not have a phone and didn't want to spend time worrying about it, so we decided to let it go and deal with it when we turned the car in. All day today we were thinking of what to say, will they believe us if we say we didn't do it, how much will it cost, etc. It has been on our mind the last month. Not to mention our parking brake got stuck (it works by a button) and we couldn't get the gas tank cover off- push button that wouldn't open, even though we had done it many times. So it is clear we were not having a love affair with this car!





So we went to return the car, drove around and around trying not to kill someone and finally found a small sign. We drove in and still couldn't find it. Monte got directions and just walked since we had found a parking place. He says he would never have found it without help. To make a very long story short, there was small writing on our contract noting the damage to the car, so we didn't do it! Even though we were sure we didn't, we didn't know how we would prove that. So, we felt much better! It would have been nice had they mentioned it to us when we first got the car. Oh, well.




We walked to the train station to find out what train we need to get us to the airport. We had no option of return flights, it is only at 9:30, so unfortunately we have to get up by 4:00am, be out to call for a taxi for the ten min ride to the train station, take the 40 min ride, catch the shuttle to the terminal and check in 3 hours early. Well, I was hoping to avoid all this, but what can you do? Maybe we'll sleep well on the airplane.





After dropping our car we walked to the cathedral. It was amazing! We didn't get any information about it, but just looking at it was fantastic. We spent about an hour inside, then decided to walk back to our hotel. And of course, nothing is easy when you travel. So it took awhile to find the right street and it began to rain. Luckily, yesterday we picked up a cheap umbrella since it looked like possible rain. Our raincoats did arrive by mail yesterday but we didn't get them until the end of our day, and today we dropped our luggage at the hotel without thinking about raincoats. It had looked sunny and nice. So our 7€ umbrella was worth it.

We had a nice dinner at the hotel; we are packed and ready for our 4am call.


Makes you appreciate our "all you can drink" soda! This is the size of a coke. Funny how the beer portions are not a problem!


Small elevator! We could hardly put ourselves in much less our luggage.


This was more of a business day just getting ready to fly, but still a fun and exciting day. Many interesting people here in Koln, reminds me San Francisco, if you know what I mean.

A GREAT trip! We have loved every minute! So thankful we have had this opportunity in our lives!


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Location:B9,Cologne,Germany

Mosel River Day Three

Today we decided to go to the tourist areas of the Rhine River, St. Goar and Bacharach. We took a river boat cruise between the two. The weather was much nicer today, overcast with misty rain occasionally. It was fun walking around the villages. No crowds at all, anywhere we have been. In fact, yesterday we ran into an older German couple we had talked to the day before and as they noticed us they said, "Oh, the Americans".

It was really fun to see all the castles along the river. They are amazing and there are so many. Again we loved watching the cargo barges and river boat cruises. The villages are again those storybook kind, we never seem to get tired of them.






This is me leading my tour group












We did have a different experience today. While we were driving Monte had a guy following that kept trying to pass, but didn't. So, when he found a space he pulled over to let the guy pass. When we pulled over he did too. He got out of the car and motioned for us to stop, he was wearing a police uniform. He came up to the window, hands down on our car door and said something in German and Monte told him he only speaks a bit if German. Then the police said "Can I help you?", not in a friendly manner. Monte explained he was just letting him pass and that we didn't need his help. He said ok, have a good day, then left. It was weird. His car was unmarked and Monte said his uniform said captain on it. He thinks the guy was having a bad day and would have chewed us out if we were German, but I'm not sure what for, maybe going too slow...we were going speed limit!

We also got lost and Monte asked a guy for directions, instead he said follow me, I'll take you there. Nice guy.


Of course we had our usual breakfast, ate lunch at 2:00 (and found a place open, maybe because it is more touristy -sandwich, soup, and a personal size German pizza which is really good). Then we had cake at 4:00, because it is tradition, you know, and then our light dinner turned into a full course dinner...because it was our last chance! Then we walked around town as we have for the last couple nights. Nice to have it cooler.



Tomorrow we return our car, train to our hotel, see the cathedral in Koln, then fly home on Friday.





Paige was feeling sad tonight knowing that we are leaving. It is sad to think we may never see the same places again, but you never, we may, or we may find even better ones!

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Location:Briedern, Germany